Some 4WD tracks in the Centre

The main appeal of the 195km Mereenie Loop, linking the West MacDonnells with Kings Canyon (allow 3–4hr), is that it avoids backtracking on the usual “Canyon and Rock” tour. It is a stunning drive with plenty of desert oaks, river crossings, wild horses, donkeys and dingoes. The corrugations can be fearsome; don’t even think about the trip if rain is forecast as it’s prone to flash flooding and inaccessible after rain. Obtain a permit at Alice Springs Visitor Centre, Glen Helen or Kings Canyon. Note that you’re not allowed to stop or camp.

With a day to spare and experience with a 4WD, following the Finke river bed from Hermannsburg down to the Ernest Giles Road offers an adventurous alternative to the highway and saves some backtracking. Rewards include stark gorge scenery, a reliable waterhole and the likelihood that you’ll have it all to yourself. Before you set off, check the road conditions. On the route follow the small signs for “Kings Canyon”.

The 100km track starts immediately south of Hermannsburg. After 10km of corrugated road you descend into the river bed. From here on driving is slow, along a pair of sandy or pebbly ruts – you should deflate your tyres to at least 25psi/1.7bar and keep in the ruts to minimize the risk of getting stuck. The sole designated campsite is at Boggy Hole, much nicer than it sounds and almost two hours (28.5km) from Hermannsburg. The campsite looks out from beneath river red gums to permanent reed-fringed waterholes, best seen at dawn as the sunlight creeps across the gorge and the ponds are alive with birdlife.

Beyond Boggy Hole, the track crisscrosses rather than follows the river bed before taking a roller-coaster ride to the Giles Road across some low dunes thinly wooded with desert oaks – beware of oncoming traffic on blind crests. Boggy Hole to the Giles Road is 65km, so allow at least three hours.

Check the latest track conditions before heading out on this scenic, if bumpy, 47km drive (allow 2hr) through the Eastern ranges. It includes some steep creek crossings until you reach the sandy river bed of the Hale and the Ruby Gap Nature Park. From here, keep to the sandy ruts and inch carefully over the rocks for 5km, at which point you’ll need to stop and walk the last 2km to Glen Annie Gorge, a dead end with maroon cliffs, bright green reeds and creamy sand.

Another challenging track (impassable after the rain) heads north from Arltunga past Claraville station and up over the Harts Ranges through Cattlewater Pass to the Plenty Highway, 67km or three hours from Arltunga. It’s a scenic way of returning to Alice Springs from Arltunga and you’re bound to see some hopping marsupials along the way, but ensure you allow plenty of time as it’s slow-going in places. Once you reach the Plenty Highway it’s a fairly easy dirt road (in dry weather) via Gemtree to the Stuart Highway and Alice Springs, 150km away.

More ambitious is the 550km loop into the fringes of the Simpson Desert along the Finke and Old Andado tracks, which diverge at Alice Springs’ airport and meet at the community of Finke. At the airport, the Finke Track is also known as the Old Ghan Heritage Trail, as it follows the route of the old railway all the way past Oodnadatta to Port Augusta in South Australia. On the way, you’ll pass stands of desert oak and may see camels, descendants of the original beasts led by Afghan cameleers before the Ghan train reached Alice Springs in 1928. It passes Ewaninga Rock Carvings but detours east before Maryvale to the ruins of Rodinga sidings. The section from Rodinga to Finke is the best part of this route, either on the embankments of the actual railway or on the rougher track alongside it, passing other sidings with interpretive boards on the history of this pioneering overland route. As you near Finke, the red sand ridges create some sandy passages, after which you cross the sandy Finke River itself and enter the community.

After Finke, the nature of the route changes as you traverse overgrazed plains to New Crown station; you may prefer to call it a day here and turn west from Finke to Kulgera on the Stuart Highway. To complete the loop via Andado, head east, recrossing the broad Finke, and follow the denuded pasturelands past Andado homestead and on to the ramshackle but still occupied Old Andado homestead. North of here the track remains easy but gets bleaker still as the sand ridges thin out. After a while, the ranges of the East MacDonnells rise from the horizon and bring you back into vegetated and then wooded country for the rough, final 150km past Santa Teresa community and the airport close to town.